Naturalistic Assessment of Language and Emotion Brain Recovery Through Real World Language Studies
Introduction
In this interview with Center for Brain Recovery PhD Student Manuel Marte, we explore his interdisciplinary project which dives into a Naturalistic Assessment of Language and Emotion. This research aims to build off of the use of movie fMRI (mv-fMRI) for presurgical language mapping and has benefited greatly from the researchers on the team and participants of the studies. For this research, Manuel Marte has worked alongside a team of talented individuals from both Boston University’s Center for Brain Recovery and McLean Hospital to uncover how different brain networks – including language, emotion, and visual systems – interact during real-world language comprehension.
Meet the team
Manuel Marte – Aphasia
Ph.D Student of Boston University’s Center for Brain Recovery, Manuel Marte, runs the arm of the study having to do with aphasia. Marte recruits, tests, and runs experiments with patients, as well as manages aspects of the database and develops analyses. He also contributed to the design of the experimental paradigm, and oversaw all aspects of the implementation. His extensive experience studying aphasia and working with patients in the CBR has helped him excel in his role in the research.
Bryce Gillis – Age-Matched Healthy Controls
Gillis is a research assistant at McLean Hospital, where he runs the arm of the study having to do with age-matched healthy controls, an incredibly important aspect of creating a well balanced study. Bryce recruits, tests, and runs the experiment with neurotypical adults, and manages aspects of the database. Gillis provided significant assistance in implementing the paradigm and has also begun developing his own analyses.
Einat Liebenthal – Mentorship and Management of Project
Dr. Liebenthal is a PI at McLean Hospital. Einat oversees and manages the in-person and virtual aspects of the projects, provides feedback to Bryce and Manuel, and actively works to solve live problems throughout the implementation of the experiment. Einat also guides the theoretical and clinical interpretations of the data collection and analysis process.
Swathi Kiran – Management of Project and Assistance with Analysis
Dr. Kiran is a PI at Boston University and Founding Director of the Center for Brain Recovery. Her primary role is to assist in managing the project, and provides feedback to her mentees, CBR PhD student Marte and McLean Hospital RA Gillis. Kiran uses her extensive experience in aphasia, brain recovery research, and speech language pathology to guide interpretations and analysis of data acquired in the study.
About the Study
The key elements of Marte and his team’s research is built off of existing studies using movie fMRI (mv-fMRI) for presurgical language mapping. Previous studies have suggested that conventional task-fMRI, while widely used, noticeably relies on the patient’s ability to perform language tasks and requires expertise of researchers to administer, which can result in difficulty collecting valid data, especially from neurologically disordered. Additionally, while task-free techniques such as resting state-fMRI can be used, it is notably more variable and susceptible to confounds.
Marte explains that, “Mv-fMRI aims to overcome these limitations by engaging the language network more naturally and reliably with rich, multimodal movie stimuli, which builds on findings of synchronized neural activity across subjects during movie viewing. The newer ideas in this project relate to what we may find in people with aphasia and how they perform on a valence judgment task, wherein they rate how they are feeling, and how their eye gaze patterns evolve, both throughout presentation of the movie clip, respectively.”
Brain Recovery Through Real-World Language Studies
This research could greatly benefit the field of brain recovery research. On the surface its focus is most in line with the field of neuroimaging and language processing, but at the Center for Brain Recovery we have explored how these fields are tightly knit with understanding how the brain recovers. Marte and his team’s research primarily observes individuals with aphasia following stroke, and directly investigates how the brain processes language in naturalistic contexts. The use of movie-watching fMRI combined with offline eye-tracking and emotional valence measures is helping the team uncover how different brain networks – including language, emotion, and visual systems – interact during real-world language comprehension. This approach could potentially reveal preserved abilities or compensatory mechanisms in people with aphasia that aren’t apparent in traditional assessments. This suggests promising development, as understanding these processes may inform new rehabilitation strategies that can leverage intact brain functions to support language recovery – unveiling hope and new pathways to recovery for patients.